


in a southern land, all southern winds are cold

by ArialaCoeur



Series: (though earth has many splendours) [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU, AUAUAU, Family Feels, Gen, I just wanted to write Australian!family feels, Well - Freeform, also I love the Australian landscape, and Frigga getting the mad props she deserves, cannot stress the AUness enough, everybody has an Aussie accent, sorry but that's how it is, with the royal family of Asguard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 20:57:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14777109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArialaCoeur/pseuds/ArialaCoeur
Summary: An Australian (read: Royal Asguardian) family winding down at the end of the day.Loki introspection.Frigga props.Fenris as the family dog (lbr, he belongs to Loki and Frigga, he tolerates everyone else- Thor is acceptable as the ball-throwing and mock-fight providing minion).Loki's about mid-late teens, Thor is late-teens, early twenties.Really, this is just an ode to Aussie culture and the Australian landscape, I wish I was joking. But with family cuteness, soooo.





	in a southern land, all southern winds are cold

There is a cool wind coming in from the south, and Loki can feel the slightest sprinkle of rain on his face, from where the beginnings of the late afternoon sun-shower is blowing through the screen enclosing the porch.

He looks up as the screen-door swings closed with a clatter, twisting a bit to look- he’s comfortable where he is, sprawled out belly-down across the chintzy old couch, a blanket covering him from the waist-down. Autumn’s putting a bite in the air lately, so more blankets are always a good idea.

Thor grins at him, evidently pleased at having beaten the rain, however quick and desultory it might prove to be. “Comfortable there, Lokes?”

“Quite, thank you,” Loki snarks back, having heard one too many ‘little-old granny with her lap-blanket’ jokes to give a damn. “That rust-bucket of your’s still not given up the ghost?”

“Mjolnir’s not a rust-bucket, she’s a beautiful lady of olden times-” “A bag of bolts that gets one bump, one pot-hole, closer to falling apart every time you drive her, you mean-” “-and when I finally get around to restoring her properly, she’ll outshine every other car in the state, you’ll see.”

“Hmm, well, I’ll have to see it to believe it, won’t I?” comes the sceptical hum from Loki, but there’s no true malice behind it- he and Thor have been having this argument since the day their father gifted Mjolnir to the blonde on his eighteenth birthday, it’s as well-worn and comforting as an old jumper by this point.

“You will,” Thor yells back over his shoulder as he opens the door to the house proper, Frigga calling out a greeting from the kitchen, where she’s presumably making a meal most chefs would envy. Being an land lawyer, Thor and Loki have been lucky to have a mother who is at home as often as Frigga, ably balancing family and career in a way which leaves most other women- and a fair few men, too- amazed and inspired. Odin, Loki and Thor have teased her about possibly writing a tell-all memoir/how-to book, or making a TED-talk about her life, but in all honesty, the three of them adore the woman who graces their lives, and they are more serious about her spreading her story than she probably realises. 

Loki turns his gaze back outside- the deciduous trees have decided the recent decline in overall temperature means that it is autumn, never mind the golden days that the summer has been throwing in, stretching out to nearly half the length of the next season. That’s what it’s like, though, in this climate- long, golden days, chased by fierce winds and lashing rains, days where you can spend all your time outside, ditching most layers, only to huddle up by the nearest heat source at night, listening to the gales that herald the changing season howling outside, like they wish the sun would stay longer. Bright, harsh winter sunshine, along with bitter rain and a constant chill in shadow and shine alike, is on the way.

Fenris, Loki’s dog, gets up from his bed, where he’s been happily cuddling with a bone for a long while. Coming over to Loki, the dog jumps up, kneading, prodding and wriggling until he gets under Loki’s arm, snuggled between his owner and the back of the couch. Loki looks down at him and lifts an eyebrow. “Feel lucky that I love you, you dopey hound, and that Mum doesn’t love this couch all that much. Otherwise, there’s no way in hell you’d be getting away with that.”

Fenris’ tail starts to wag as he hears something, off in the distance, out of Loki’s ability to sense. The dog scrambles forward and up, paws balanced on the arm of the couch, as his body starts vibrating in the clear prelude to a bark. Loki himself pops up to see what has Fenris’ attention, and thus, is caught with the outburst of torrential barks going off right next to his ear- finally spotting Odin’s ute, loaded up with tools and equipment as always.

“I should have known,” the teen grumbles, scowling at the dog. Fenris nurses a gleeful grudge against Odin for some reason- he doesn’t attack him and isn’t aggressive at all, but seems to take a malicious pleasure in barking the house down whenever he sees or hears him coming home, leaves bones lying where only Odin- and occasionally Thor- seems to trip over them, chews up, hides or vomits on his shoes- and only his shoes-, digs holes that Odin then has to fill in, and occasionally relieves himself against Odin’s ute. Loki suspects that Odin would have tried to sell or give Fenris away, if the rest of his family weren’t so fond of the animal. Fenris is a rather fine breed after all, blue heeler cross kelpie, and since he’s an experienced cattle dog, he’d sell well. But Fenris has ingratiated himself but good, in with Frigga, and Odin’s by far too wise to kick that anthill.

Finally free to go back to daydreaming in the last few minutes before Frigga calls him in for dinner, Loki looks back outside once more. The rain stopped a while back- as brief as it had promised to be- and the wind has driven the clouds off a ways, cotton wool stretched across the sky all the way to the horizon, now being dyed in graduating shades of blue, to purple, to candy-pink, to peachy-orange, to a clear and shining gold where the sun is going down. There’s the faintest haze in the air, the lingering mist from the rain, and the sunset light is casting mini rainbows through it, at the very edge of Loki’s vision.

He breathes in, the faintest hint of petrichor tingling along his tongue, the rough, yet soft brush of the couch on his stomach and the tops of his thighs where his clothes have ridden up, the heat of Fenris by his side, and he hears laughter from inside- Frigga and Odin and Thor have already gathered at the table, probably-

And as Frigga’s call comes at last, backed up by Thor’s boisterous threat to eat his share if Loki isn’t fast enough-

Loki smiles to himself. Yes, there’s nowhere he’d rather be than here. (And no-one he’d rather be with.)

**Author's Note:**

> so much of this is based in real life. a lot of it is also based in Australian literature and classical culture. but seriously, it's like I just projected my culture onto these people and adapted it to fit their personalities. (I'm not sorry.)


End file.
